


Clarification

by LilithFairen



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Gay Feelings, Magical Girls, Unrequited Crush, uplifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:47:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26405242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilithFairen/pseuds/LilithFairen
Summary: A magical girl is meant to be a beacon of good and purity.But Claire now knows her own heart all too well.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 7





	Clarification

Claire’s mom knocked at the door. An icy cold flooded her core, a chill that shattered as the knob twisted and the door squeaked open. Every other time since Friday that her mom had checked on her, it had been innocuous, mundane—just questions about dinner or if her daughter had any dishes in her room.

By the way her mom leaned her head in, rather than enter as usual, Claire knew this time it was going to be the question she feared the most.

“Claire, dear,” her mom said, “is anything wrong? You’ve kept to yourself this whole weekend…”

Lifting her head away from the book she pretended to read, Claire said, “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just…haven’t felt like doing much.”

“You’re usually out with your friends. Are they busy?”

The thought that they might be, that she wasn’t there to help out, renewed that freezing sensation within Claire. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

What if they hadn’t even _wanted_ her help now?

Her mother stepped in at last. The frown upon her face made it clear that she had her suspicions. “What’s wrong, Claire? Did you and your friends fight about something?”

Claire’s stomach collapsed into a black hole, consuming all the warmth from every inch of her body. Her hands tightened upon the book she held. Her body stiffened in her seat. Every iota of her will went into trying to keep herself from reacting to what her mom had said, from asking to be left alone, from bursting into tears right that moment.

Instead, she said after a second, “It’s fine, Mom. Trust me.”

From her mother’s lingering stare, she certainly didn’t. But her mom withdrew after a second, leaving the door just ajar.

Claire sat perfectly still, trying to force every thought, every memory, every emotion that flickered through her mind into that black hole. It didn’t work, and even as she forced her eyes to the pages before her, her mind refused to let her distract herself.

She wasn’t strong enough for that.

She hadn’t been strong enough.

…she’d been such a fool…

* * *

When Claire awoke on Monday morning, half an hour before the alarm went off, she sat up in her bed. She remained perfectly still, deep in thought.

In reflection.

In dread.

The others would be there. Aurea, Lujza, Nainsi.

And Camille.

How many other students would know what’d happened? What she had done? How many people had witnessed everything that’d passed on Friday? Would Camille have told her other friends about what someone she’d considered a “friend” had done to her? Had wanted to do to her?

Just the thought of it caused Claire to clench her bedsheets. She’d known Camille for much longer than her other close friends. They’d met when they were in kindergarten, and had been inseparable since. Birthday parties, sleepovers, trick-or-treating…they’d done everything together for years.

When had it been that Claire had started wondering just how Camille had felt towards her? If her company was just as special to Camille as Camille’s was to her? Claire couldn’t even remember when it had clicked in her mind—maybe it was while watching some cartoon, when she realized she’d always enjoyed the heroines’ female friends more than the male love interests.

That word had popped into Claire’s mind, and with it a certainly she couldn’t deny.

The other girls hadn’t tried to call or visit over the weekend. Neither had Camille. Did all of them not want to be her friend anymore, after what she’d done? How low she’d fallen? Her pathetic, cruel desperation?

The sound of footsteps outside her bedroom snapped Claire out of her thoughts. Her parents would be expecting her to go off to school, like today was any other day.

She didn’t want to face any of them. She just wanted to curl back up underneath her blankets and hide away from the world. From herself.

But that would only make her parents all the more aware that something had happened.

And after all, the darkness might strike again. Aurea and the others might need her.

For all the help she would be.

Claire pulled herself out of bed.

* * *

She didn’t watch any of the other few students gathered at the bus stop for any reaction to her presence. Maybe they knew. Maybe all of them were whispering to each other about her.

She just wanted to run away. But the bus drew up to the curve, and once the other students had boarded, Claire followed them up the steps.

As she made her way towards the back, one boy lifted his head and smiled to her.

Her stomach shrank, and she hurried past him. A nauseous feeling replaced the void, with the movement of the bus doing little to settle her unease.

That boy…Wilbur. Camille had introduced him to Claire, and she’d felt just as she felt now a few moments after Camille had explained their relationship to Claire. Claire had kept a straight face the entire time, but as Camille had gone off with Wilbur, their hands together, Claire had watched without a word, wondering if she should have said something before. If she should have admitted her feelings. If, at the very least, she should have admitted she was gay to Camille. Would Camille take such an admission as Claire being interested in her?

Would it have only made things awkward between them for Camille to know how Claire liked her as more than a friend?

But things couldn’t be more awkward now. And after all, Camille would surely know how Claire had felt. Her obsession. Her jealousy. Her selfishness.

Wilbur had to have known. His friendly smile must have been nothing but a ruse.

Claire tried to shrink into her seat. Now, more than anything, she wished not for a transformation into a more vibrant form, but to simply vanish away into nothing.

* * *

When she stepped off of the bus and headed into her high school, Claire wanted nothing but to avoid anyone she knew. The other girls, Camille, Wilbur…anyone who might have known what she had done.

Everyone around her might have been someone who knew. She wouldn’t have been the first student here to have succumbed to the darkness. Teenage anxieties were often exploited by the beings who emerged from the shadows, those creatures that believed all humans longed to relish in sinful ways but restrained themselves out of foolish notions of good.

No one she knew of had been shamed when they’d been possessed, transformed not into a heroine of light but into a monster of darkness. Maybe they didn’t recall any of it, remember what they’d done or what had lured them into possession. Even when other students witnessed Aurea, Nainsi, Lujza, and her purifying the darkness from them, they didn’t seem to judge their classmates for what had happened.

What would they think if one who was supposed to protect and guide them was no better than them—and far, far worse?

As Claire lifted her head away from her locker, she almost started away to her left—until she spotted a face in the crowd.

Aurea’s face. She leaned against the wall, about twenty feet away, staring at Claire. Watching.

Claire slammed her locker shut, then hurried off in the opposite direction.

* * *

When lunch period came, consorting with other students was the last thing Claire wanted. Rather than head to the cafeteria, she headed outside, into the crisp autumn air. A few other students were heading out for lunch, but no one Claire recognized—no one who recognized her.

As she stood by a tree, watching the leaves rustle in the wind, the voice she feared hearing the most called out from behind her. “Hey, Claire!”

Claire didn’t want to turn around. But such courtesy was the least she owed her best friend. Camille hurried towards her, with Wilbur behind her. He still smiled, as if without a care in the world.

“Everything okay, Claire?” Camille asked.

Though Claire felt faint, like she was going to pass out, she said, “I’m fine, Camille.”

The two simply stared at each other, with only the whistle of the wind and the occasional vehicle rolling on by to fill the air. Behind Camille, Wilbur’s smile shrank, as if he realized something was amiss between the two.

Finally, Camille said it—what Claire should have been strong enough to say first. “C-can we talk for a moment?”

There was no doubt about the subject of this talk. All Claire could do was nod. Camille glanced back to Wilbur and said, “We’ll just be a second, alright?” He nodded in turn, his smile perking up once more.

Claire followed Camille around the corner of the high school. Once they were out of sight of Wilbur, Camille spoke up. “About Friday…”

“I’m sorry, okay?” It burst out of Claire like a flood smashing through a dam. It needed to come out. She had to be strong enough to own up to it.

Camille’s eyes widened. “Claire…”

“It was…it was my fault.” She recoiled against the wall, almost slumping down. Her eyes lowered to her feet, away from her best friend’s face. “Camille, I’ve always valued your friendship. You’ve mattered more to me than anyone else I’ve known. For a while now…I’ve known it was something more that I felt towards you.”

Camille remained silent.

“But…but…but I know you love Wilbur. That maybe…maybe you’re not even…” She could barely blurt it out. “…into girls. Gay.”

Finally, her friend spoke. “Claire, trust me, I’m happy for you to be—”

“That doesn’t make what I did right! What I…what I wanted to do.” Claire shuddered, as tears began to leave moist trails down her face. “When I saw you holding hands with Wilbur, it was like…” She couldn’t even describe the despair that had gripped her in that moment. Seeing someone she’d wished she could be with, to hold the hand of, with another… “I felt so envious, so sad about not having you…and-and _they_ answered.”

“Those…those people from the darkness?” asked Camille.

Claire nodded, shutting her eyes tight. “He knew what I wanted. To make you mine, even if you would never be mine. To force you to love me, e-even if you wouldn’t really love another girl like…like I would.”

Once more, her best friend remained silent.

“I’m…I’m sorry. To force you to love me…it was sick, selfish, horrible. To try to take you away from Wilbur…”

She would have wanted not to sob and cry, but as her own fall had proven, she was weak. Pathetic.

A few seconds passed until Camille placed a hand on her shoulder. Claire shifted away out of instinct. She’d wanted Camille’s loving touch, enough to let her heart be stained by darkness, enough to do something so terrible to her best fri—

“Claire,” Camille said, her voice soft, “what are you talking about?”

Glaring at her friend through the distortion of tears, Claire said, “I wanted to brainwash you into being my girlfriend! That was how the darkness turned me into a monster! That’s…that’s what I did to you…”

“Claire!” Camille’s voice was like a shout, yet hushed. “Claire, you…you didn’t…”

Claire shook her head, in disbelief.

“You…you didn’t come after me. I didn’t even realize that monster was you at first. I thought it was just another one of them causing chaos, until the magical girls blasted them with their attack…and you were left lying there.”

She had to be lying, just to try to make Claire feel better…

“When I realized it was you, I ran over. That was why I was there when you woke up. You didn’t come after me, I promise.”

Claire couldn’t believe it. Camille, her feelings towards Camille…that was how the darkness had taken hold of her. What she’d been willing to give herself to the very evil she fought, just out of desperation…

“And Claire,” Camille said, “I’m sure it was this darkness that made you do this. You would _never_ do such a thing to anyone, I’m sure of it. You’re one of the kindest, most caring people I know. Even if you’ve felt this way towards me, I know you’d never force me to love you.”

It hadn’t only been during her possession, though. Such wishes had plagued her nearly the entire week up to Friday, and it’d been seeing Camille with Wilbur that’d driven her to the brink…

“I… W-well, while I don’t feel how you feel, I’m not…” Camille’s voice trailed off. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you feel bad about how you feel. I’m kind of flattered, actually. You’re my best friend, and you always will be. This whole nonsense isn’t going to change that, Claire. I trust you.”

Claire barely even trusted herself. Yet Camille spoke with such confidence, such certainty. At the very least, even if Camille didn’t feel the same way, she wasn’t disgusted over her best friend longing for her.

Still, Claire had to say it. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Camille said. “I’d…I’d talk more, but I don’t want to keep Wilbur waiting. Sorry…”

Claire nodded. “I hope you two are happy together. I really do. You make a cute couple.”

Camille smiled. “See? That’s the real you, I’m sure of it. Don’t let whatever this whole ‘darkness’ thing is drag you down. Isn’t that what it wants?”

That much was true, Claire knew. And maybe she’d had a moment of weakness, but all she could do was steel herself against its temptations. “Alright. Now get going, you.”

With a smile, Camille hurried off, leaving Claire to wipe the tears from her eyes.

That had been what the voice had offered, hadn’t it? To make Camille hers… That was the last thing Claire recalled, before awakening in her friends’ arms with Camille by her side.

Yet Camille was so certain Claire would never do such a thing…

Of course, Aurea and the others would have thought one of their own, a magical girl like themselves, would be wary and wise enough against the darkness’s manipulations.

Claire stepped away from the wall, sighing. She looked up to the overcast sky, the grey dreary clouds blocking out the sun.

Then black lightning, tinged with a sinister violet shade, flashed across the sky.

A gasp left Claire’s throat. That was their sign, their warning. Of one of the servants of darkness calling upon evil powers from beyond the void.

Another person was having their heart stolen by darkness.

Her hand trembled against her chest. It was her duty to answer this call, to save the heart of the darkness’s victim. Her fellow magical girls would be there soon, wreathed in light and ready to fight.

She’d always been willing to do so herself. When the sprite from the Realm of Hearts had landed upon the back of her hand, pleading for another to join the maidens already in battle with a monster, Claire hadn’t hesitated to accept. Even when she’d seen the monster in question, a terrifying creature of shadow that tossed about the two magical girls already engaged as if they were mere toys, Claire had steeled herself and charged in.

Now…

…was she still even worthy? Was her fall enough to taint her heart, leave her distanced from the light? Even when she thought of transforming, she didn’t feel that spark within her about to ignite.

She didn’t deserve to be a magical girl. She wasn’t strong enough.

But even as she thought of slinking back to her classes, she knew the others would be on their way to face the darkness. To save whoever had been caught in their trickery and deceit.

Just as they’d saved her.

Though the usual valour and heart didn’t fill Claire, she still raced to the sidewalk, intent on following the trails of dark energy in the sky to their source.

* * *

As Claire approached the soccer field where the dark trails led to, a bright pillar of light shone past the tall fence. The radiant beam purged the black lightning from the sky, leaving what seemed like a normal autumn sky.

So they’d stopped the monster without her. They hadn’t needed her. She approached the gap in the fence into the field—at least she could pretend she had merely been late to help.

Before she stepped through, she caught Niansi’s voice shouting. “Don’t you dare insult her like that! She’s stronger than any of you evil creeps ever will be!”

Could she have been talking about—

A voice answered Niansi. A voice that froze Claire’s heart solid. A voice she knew far too well.

“And yet she was so easily swayed by the darkness,” came the cruel voice. “How easy it was to tempt her with her longing for another!”

“You think you know how humans feel,” Aurea answered, “just because you can manipulate their hearts?”

“I do not convince humans of what to believe,” answered the voice—surely some servant of darkness. “I open their eyes to what truly lies in their hearts. Selfish, greedy desires…such is what all of your kind truly seek.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” Lujza cried. “To feel good about having sold your own soul to the darkness?”

“So many are willing to. I am certain each of you will succumb, given the right motivation.”

Claire wanted to step forth. To reveal her presence, to join her friends, to support them. Yet nothing terrified her as much as the thought of stepping before the one who’d twisted her heart into darkness. Even as she sensed the clash of magical energies, Claire remained in hiding.

“Hah!” came the cruel voice, over the screams of Claire’s friends. “Why do you think she hasn’t come to fight alongside you? Because she has realized her precious light is a lie!”

“Claire’s the most selfless person we know!” Lujza snarled. More pulses of magic followed. “She’ll never back down from fighting you creeps, no matter what tricks you play on her!”

“The day will come when she accepts what I offered her once,” the servant shouted. “And when that day comes, she will join us as a servant of darkness!”

Accept…what he offered? It was his voice, this servant, that had taunted her about her unrequited love. He’d given her that proposition: to make Camille love her in turn. Yet Camille hadn’t been her target, and now even he claimed…

“But she didn’t, did she?” Niansi replied, over the echo of bursting magic. “You couldn’t corrupt her like you wanted!”

“She was swayed easily to despair over her desire,” replied the servant. “If only I had fed her doubts and longing further, she might have given in to temptation. But it matters not! Now she knows how vulnerable and weak she is, and it will not be long until she understands how the darkness will give her the strength to fulfill her desires!”

Claire’s eyes were wide. Now she did know. Her hand pressed to her chest, tightening into a trembling fist.

Another blast of magical energy provoked another cry from her friends. “One by one,” shouted the mocking voice of the servant of darkness, “you will be broken from your precious light, and be consumed by—”

“Oh, give it a break, why don’t you?”

The figure, clad in a black robe and floating above the ground, turned towards Claire. Beneath their hood was an alabaster face, framed by violet hair and bearing eyes as red as rubies. Past the servant of darkness, Claire’s fellow magical girls rose to their feet. Each was clad in magical garments of a different colour: Aurea in pink, Niansi in yellow, Lujza in green.

“Claire!” Aurea shouted, a smile clear upon her face.

Laughing, the servant of darkness said, “So you return before me. Have you come to accept what your heart desires?”

Claire’s eyes narrowed upon the hooded figure. “I know what my heart wants. To stand against evil monsters like you. To protect the good people of my world from your darkness! And…and of course, I’ve always wanted to find love. The girl who’ll make me happy…”

“She can be yours,” beckoned the servant. “Through our power, all will give you what you want.”

“But I don’t want to force someone I care about so much into something that won’t make them happy,” Claire replied, approaching closer. “And that was it, wasn’t it? You had me wanting her more and more. You probably had your hooks in me for a while, huh?”

That the servant didn’t counter in her brief silence confirmed her suspicions. “Then when I saw her with Wilbur, you thought that would be your chance. To get me to betray myself, betray the light, and accept the darkness.”

Past that hooded figure, her friends were all smiling in pride.

“But trying to steal someone’s heart, even if I would cherish a world where we could be together?” Claire let a smirk of her own grow over her face. Now that she knew the truth, the rest of her memory before that moment came into focus in her mind. “No…in fact, that broke your spell over me, didn’t it?”

The fury upon the servant’s face, the hellish glow in their eyes, was all the answer Claire needed.

“I love Camille,” she said aloud. “And I love her so much that I want her and Wilbur to be the happiest couple together. I love her so much that I’ll destroy you for trying to break them apart!”

That spark flared into brilliant light, wreathing her body. Her ordinary clothes faded away into her regalia of light, an outfit matching her fellow magical girls’ costumes, save for its blue colours.

When the light finally faded, Claire raised her hand. “Now the light shall wash away the darkness!”

* * *

“We knew you’d come to help!” Aurea replied, as the four walked away from the soccer field. “No darkness could ever discourage you.”

Claire wished that was true. Surely they’d known themselves. “I’d…I’d thought with how I hadn’t heard from you girls this weekend that…”

Lujza put a hand on her shoulder. “You were really shook up about the whole thing, Claire. We weren’t sure if we should reach a hand out to you, or if it was best to wait until you were ready.”

“We should have made sure you were alright,” Aurea replied, bowing her head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Claire said. “None of us are perfect. I should have known you girls would be there for me.”

“We always are!” Lujza replied, grinning. “No matter what darkness threatens us or the world, we’ll blast it away to oblivion!”

The four approached an intersection. As Claire prepared to bid farewell to the others, Niansi said, “Hey, why don’t I walk Claire home? Just to make sure no creeps are going to follow her back.”

Claire raised an eyebrow. “Alright,” Aurea replied. “Talk to you girls later!”

Lujza and Aurea went their separate ways, while Claire continued on her way home with Niansi. A nervous feeling filled her stomach, a conscious anxiety. Maybe it wasn’t all her fault, but she still felt like she’d let her friends down, put others at risk. If she’d been stronger…

“Are you really okay, Claire?” Niansi asked, her voice snapping Claire out of her reflection.

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Claire said. “It’s just…I still feel bad about everything, even if it wasn’t…what I thought it was. What that creep wanted me to think it was.”

“Of course it wasn’t. You’d never do such a thing. But those servants of darkness have a way of toying with their victims. To be honest, I was sure he’d targeted you because of how strong and brave you are.”

If she was so strong, shouldn’t she have been able to stop what had happened?

“Even from that day you first joined us, so willing to help us despite the danger you saw with your own eyes…” Niansi slowed to a stop. “I’ve…I’ve always admired you, Claire. And maybe…maybe this is the wrong time to talk about it…”

When Claire turned to Niansi, her friend was staring down to the sidewalk.

“…I was…I wanted to ask you…”

The tint Niansi’s cheeks were taking on were an obvious clue.

“…if maybe…someday, just the…”

Claire could feel her own face warming up.

“…I mean…maybe you’re not interested in me like that, but…”

Now that the idea had crossed Claire’s mind…

Wrapping her fingers around Niansi’s hand, Claire said, “I think I’d really like that.”

Niansi’s head perked up. Her blush deepened. Her smile grew. “Yeah…yeah.”

The two continued on, and neither let go of each other’s hand until they reached Claire’s house. A thought crossed Claire’s mind as Niansi bid her farewell, but…well, it was much too early for that sort of goodbye, even if they were already close friends.

As she walked inside, her mother stood near the den with a smile—the sort Claire’s mom often bore when she knew something was going on. “What, Mom?” Claire asked.

“Hee-hee, is that why my daughter was so nervous this weekend?” her mother replied.

Had her mom seen the two of them through the window? Well, even if it wasn’t the truth, it was a good enough cover story, and all Claire had to do to play along was giggle in turn.

It wasn’t as if the sound she made was anything short of genuine.


End file.
